September 10, 2013 Antelope Island, Great Salt Lake, Nevada

We found Antelope Island State Park only because we camped up north of Salt Lake City in Kaysville.  We saw a brochure about the park, so off we went.  Sure glad we did!  The island is in the Great Salt Lake;  we drove out there on a causeway, and then drove down the east side of the island.  Lots of hiking trails, two campgrounds, beaches, visitor center, concession stand.....but we had so little time we opted to drive around and see as much as we could.  And we saw plenty!  I would like to stay on this island for several days and explore it thoroughly - maybe next year!  

All this brings to mind a song:  "Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play....."

NOW what's he doing?  Looks like he made that bison MAD!
(this bison is Native American art, called "spirit bison")

Such a beautiful island; that is the Wasatch Range behind me.

Hard to see, but it's a coupla bucks.

Plain to see, it's some doe.

Antelope grazing.

Posed very nicely, huh!

Explanation....

Walking along...

On the ridge.

Scratching his chest & belly on a rock, you could see on his face how good it felt!

"Whadda YOU lookin at?"

I'm outa here....

THE END!

September 9, 2013 SALT!

Traveling across the salt flats towards the Great Salt Lake, we saw some sights.  Here they are.

Aw, too bad we had a camper attached to our truck......

A very short train went by....

Looks like a mirage, but it a mountain rising out of salt.

That ain't snow, and that ain't ice, that's SALT, baby!

Morton Salt plant.

Morton Salt plant.

September 8, 2018 Crossing Nevada

One thing we noticed about our drive across Nevada on I-80 was the prevalence of mining, and geothermal leaks.  We saw one plant that appeared to be capturing the geothermal energy.  No idea what is being mined (some kind of mineral?), but in some places whole mountainsides were being scraped off.

We also noticed that most of the towns that are anywhere near mountains have labeled a nearby mountain with the town initial.  A HUGE initial, visible for a long way.

Geothermal leaks.

Lovelock, Nevada

Mining.

Winnemucca, Nevada

Geothermal leaks.

Mining.

Mining.

September 7, 2013 Tufa rock formations, Pyramid Lake, Nevada

These were some of the strangest rock formations we've ever seen.  We climbed all over this thing, and it is riddled with caves both shallow and deep;  some were blackened by many fires.  There was evidence of people partying (graffiti and broken glass) but it was remarkably unspoiled.  There were lots of other piles of rock like this, but I think we picked the best one to investigate!

Here's the explanation....

The pile of Tufa rocks we clambered around on was at this beach.

Here's the whole thing; it's way bigger than it looks here!
That's a road to the beach, not a walking path....

I'm thinking this part of the rock pile might be why it's called Indian Head beach.

Can you see Bubba there on the right?  (hint: he's wearing blue)

An amazing archway.

September 7, 2013 Pyramid Lake, near Fernley, Nevada

We spent 2 nights in Fernley, Nevada (east of Reno) and are glad we did, since it gave us a whole day to wander around the area.  Our choice was to drive up to Pyramid Lake which is big blue lake plopped down in the middle of sagebrush desert in the Great Basin.  Since it's on a Paiute reservation, there has been very little commercialization and the waters remain pristine.  We drove around both sides of the bottom half of the lake, and kept noticing these strange rock formations beside the water, which is the subject of the next blog post!

This shows the size of the lake.

Anaho Island.
This is the pelican rookery during the summer.

These ravens looked pretty comfortable.
We didn't want to intrude and had lunch at a different table.

The pyramid.

Beautiful shade of blue.

Whatta man!

September 5, 2013 Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park

The Malakoff Diggins were amazing.  In the 1850's miners decided to use water-power to wash the sides of the hills into huge sluices; drain and strain until they had the gold; and flush the remainder downstream.  It must have been much more efficient than the old sluice box method, but oh my, what total destruction!  Our pictures really don't do justice to the sheer scope of this operation.  And the Malakoff was not the only outfit out there doing hydraulic mining.  The end result was that the streams and rivers were so clogged with mud and debris (all the way down to Sacramento) a law was passed outlawing the hydraulic method.  The site we visited included the old town of North Bloomfield, which was once a bustling community.  We wish we could have spent more time there, but as always, we had to be someplace else....  Please go to the link I provided and read more about the hydraulic mining, it's quite interesting!

This is called a monitor and it was used like a firehose to wash away the side of a mountain.

Old bldg. in North Bloomfield.

Can you guess what this is/was?

The Catholic church.

Another old one.

We walked down in one of many huge pits created by hydraulic mining.

How big was it, Jimmy?

Called the Hiller Tunnel.

Hiller Tunnel; taken with the flash.
Very dark in there, and water is trickling out.

Bubba and the Hiller Tunnel.